On March 4th, 2022, I had the pleasure to take part in the annual Horasis USA meeting, to discuss development times of innovation in a context I'd have never imagined when I first started to prepare for this panel.
On February 24, 2022, overnight, our world changed in a way no one could have anticipated: with Russia attacking the people of Ukraine, in violation of international law, and of human decency, causing a larger humanitarian crisis than the one the world witnessed during WW2. Since then, for many of us, daily discussions have refocused on questions such as "how can we help and stop this tragedy" and "what does this mean for our future and the future of our children" but also, "how can we live more sustainably and with less dependency"?
Today’s stress to innovate sustainably, moving away from fossil fuels, suddenly takes on a new meaning and invokes an urgency never seen before. While experts' discussions on nuclear power focus on the potential for magnetic confinement fusion to deliver safe and sustainable low-carbon energy, and governments prepare for a possible shift in our countries to war economies, we look back to understand our challenges so far and the typical human resistance to change and to adapt.
Volumes of psychological research have been published trying to explain how and why we so often miscalculate risk: over-preparing for things that are not likely to hurt us and ignoring or shrugging off the things that are.
When it comes to acting on problems, the lure of our comforts and conveniences has often caused us to act contrary to our #values, unless we were forced to act differently.
But today is different. Even as unthinkable events in Ukraine force the West to question its own strategy and politics, this time, instead of dividing and ruling, the Russian president’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has united Europe and the transatlantic sphere like nothing before: this time we must act in accordance with our values, and re-build a fairer, more sustainable world order based on true democracy and transparency.
View our discussion and find out more.